Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/126

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116
Henry E. Reed.

1850. 1890. 1900.
Arkansas 209,897 1,128,179 1,311,564
California 92,597 1,208,130 1,485,053
Colorado —— 412,198 539,700
Idaho —— 84,385 161,772
Iowa 192,214 1,911,896 2,231,853
Kansas —— 1,427,096 1,470,495
Louisiana 517,762 1,118,587 1,381,625
Minnesota 6,077 1,301,826 1,751,394
Missouri 682,044 2,679,184 3,106,665
Montana —— 132,159 343,329
Nebraska —— 1,058,910 1,066,300
Nevada —— 45,761 42,335
North Dakota —— 182,719 319,146
Oregon 13,294 313,767 413,536
South Dakota —— 328,808 401,570
Texas 212,592 2,235,523 3,048,710
Utah 11,380 207,905 276,749
Washington —— 349,390 518,103
Wyoming —— 60,705 92,531
Alaska —— 32,052 63,592
Arizona —— 59,620 122,931
Indian Territory —— 180,182 392,060
New Mexico 61,547 153,593 195,310
Oklahoma —— 61,834 398,331
Total 1,999,404 16,674,409 21,034,654

Louisiana, with 11.4 inhabitants to the square mile, was the most thickly settled state in the West in 1850. Missouri followed with 9.9; Arkansas with 4, and Iowa with 3.5. The average for the Union was 7.9. That year the little State of Delaware, with 91,532 inhabitants, boasted of one two hundred and sixty-third part of the total population of the Union. Where was Oregon with about one seventh of Delaware's population and Minnesota with less than one half of Oregon's? In 1900 the density of the Union was 25.6 inhabitants per square mile. Three western states, Missouri, with 45.2, Iowa, with 40.2, and Louisiana, with 30.4, exceeded the general average. In the remainder of the states the density ranged from 0.4 in Nevada to 24.7 in Arkansas.

The colored population of the trans-Mississippi region is largely confined to the states in the southern belt, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. In the Pacific states the colored population is principally Chinese and Japanese.

Throughout the West, with the exception of Louisiana, the number of females to each 100,000 men is under the